So I just installed the mapnik 2.0.1 binaries for Windows, and I ran into a “gotcha.” I couldn’t figure this out by Googling, so hopefully this post will help someone. (Be sure to note the embarrassing conclusion.)

C:\mapnik-2.0.1rc0\demo\c++>rundemo.exe
usage: ./rundemo <mapnik_install_dir>
Usually /usr/local/lib/mapnik
Warning: ./rundemo looks for data in ../data/,Therefore must be run from within the demo/c++ folder.

I’d like to quote Donald Knuth and re-state: “Software is hard”, but this is just a good, old-fashioned case of I-was-dumb. Nevertheless, I was stumped and Googling didn’t help, so maybe this will save some the confusion. :/